We do not have to wait for the results of investigations. We need to watch the actions of Republicans pre and post-election. And it is not pretty. A shrinking base can only win by deceptively preventing people from voting, rigging the landscape with unfair laws, and outright fraud. The Republicans are doing all three.
Beware whenever Republicans scream about voter fraud. They are projecting hoping you will take your eye off of the ball as they win by deception and fraud.
The Republicans lost the governorships in Wisconsin and Michigan. And now in the lame duck session, they are undemocratically going against the wish of the public as they try to cripple the newly elected politicians. The citizens elected Democrats on a platform of change. They aim to usurp that possibility of change. In other words, they are going against the will of the people.
Vox reports the following.
Republicans are about to lose their grip on power in a number of states, and they’re trying their hardest to sour Democrats’ election wins. In Wisconsin, Republican Gov. Scott Walker will have to pass the baton to Democrat Tony Evers come January, but before he does, the state’s GOP-controlled legislature has called for an “extraordinary session” to curb Evers’s power in office and potentially make it harder for Democrats to get elected in the future. …
A quick rundown of what Wisconsin Republicans proposed:
- Republicans want to cut down the number of early voting days, limiting it to two weeks. This would likely draw legal challenges; the proposal is very similar to a previous law that the courts struck down in 2016 for “stifling votes for partisan gain.”
- There’s a proposal that would allow the Republican legislature to intervene in legal cases and hire their own lawyers, to effectively replace the Democratic attorney general altogether — the constitutionality of which is up for debate.
- They also want to change the date for Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential primary from April to March, which Republicans say will separate “nonpartisan” elections from partisan ones, and which liberal advocates say is a play to protect conservative state Supreme Court candidates up for reelection. This idea has already raised the ire of Republican and Democratic election clerks across the state, who say it would be a logistical nightmare to hold three elections.
- The changes would give the legislature more power over the boards of certain commissions, like the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), the state’s jobs-focused agency, which has come under a lot of scrutiny for giving the Taiwanese company Foxconn Technology Group $3 billion in tax breaks in exchange for their $10 billion factory — an investment that even the state’s Legislative Bureau said the state wouldn’t bring returns until after 2043. Evers said he wanted to get rid of WEDC altogether, as it has garnered a reputation for falling short of its jobs promise.
- The proposals would limit Evers’s abilities to change the state’s work requirement laws around food stamps and health care, giving the legislature oversight over any federal waivers the state has received. Walker pushed for Medicaid work requirement waivers and waivers to drug test food stamp recipients.
- Republicans want to stop Wisconsin’s incoming attorney general from withdrawing the state from a federal lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, instead requiring legislative approval to do so.
The lame-duck legislature is attempting to do the same thing.
For the first time in nearly three decades, the top three positions in the state’s executive branch will be held by Democrats. And in the face of that, Republican state leaders are using the lame-duck session to push forward government changes that would limit Democrats’ power in the state.
One bill would ensure the Republican-controlled legislature has the opportunity to defend state laws in court, even if the Democratic administration is reluctant to do so.
For example, Nessel, the attorney general-elect, has said she may not defend the 2015 law that allows faith-based adoption agencies to decline to work with same-sex couples, an issue that remains tied up in the courts.
Another proposal would shift the oversight of the state’s campaign finance law away from the secretary of state’s office and to a commission that would include an equal number of members from each party, appointed by the governor at the advisement of the state’s Republican and Democratic parties.
We must not forget the election not yet certified that was most likely stolen from the Democrat. The Washington Post reported the following.
In a low-slung, aging commercial strip across the street from an online-gaming parlor here, a local operative named Leslie McCrae Dowless ran his command center for Republican Mark Harris in the 9th Congressional District primary this spring. … The possibility that November’s vote will be tossed out has prompted an eruption of partisan accusations. The case is politically fraught for Republicans, who in North Carolina and across the country have pushed for voter-identification laws and other restrictions while warning without evidence about the threat of rampant voter fraud, particularly by immigrants in the country illegally.
Now, amid Democratic calls for investigations of a different kind of election fraud — one that allegedly benefited the GOP — Republicans have stayed largely silent about the allegations, instead accusing the state elections board of trying to steal the race. On Monday, the board issued a subpoena to the Harris campaign, according to campaign attorney John Branch. The board is expected to issue one soon to Red Dome Group, a GOP consulting firm based in the suburbs of Charlotte that hired Dowless, according to two people familiar with the probe. The elections board has collected information suggesting that high-level officials in the campaign may have been aware of Dowless’s activities, according to the two people.
It is essential that we point these realities out. As Republicans imply that Democrats cheat in elections, it is they who do everything to usurp the will of the people.